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EA.com – Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, or EA, is a publisher that is well known in the computer and video game industry. They host some of the most popular franchises in the industry. With the sheer number of franchises and titles that come out, EA is the biggest independent publisher of computer and video games.

History

In 1982, Trip Hawkins left his job at Apple Computers, looking to start a company that would work exclusively in the up and coming industry of video games. He called it Amazin’ Software, and they got off to a good start with $2 million in investments. One characteristic of EA that has been true all along is that they make efforts to sell games directly to retailers, rather than through a company that acts exclusively as a publisher. Though this lead to trouble at first since the company was young and unestablished (and therefore the retailers were weary), once EA proved itself, it allows for greater profit margins.

Web Site features

With dozens of franchises, each of which has fans all over the world, EA has plenty to include on their web site. The News section includes all of the latest updates about EA-developed games, including release dates, cancellations, delays, or details about the gameplay. It is also very common for the company to show screenshots and videos of their games in the media section. The Hints and Tips section gives players help on any aspect of EA games that they might have been stuck on. PC game players can also download updates, patches, and new content for their games.

Company Philosophy

EA is often credited for the status that game developers have today. In the 80’s, game developers were thought of as laborers who typed at computers all day long in order to bring a technically good product. EA took great steps towards getting rid of these notions, by making the developers out to be creative individuals, more like artists than factory workers. Today, designers like Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Cliffy B, and David Jaffe are treated like celebrities. This could very likely be because of EA’s portrayal of the developers.

Criticism

EA has come under a lot of criticism, especially in recent years and as it has grown. One oft-criticized business practice is to buy a small studio with a popular franchise, then fire almost all of the original employees and continue making the franchise without them. Fans of these franchises feel that the newer EA-developed games are not up to the standards of the previous games in the series.
EA has also been criticized for failing to bring innovation to the table with their new games. Their most popular franchises are sports games that get an update every year. These updates rarely consist of more than small graphical tweaks and some changes in the rosters. However, they sell for the price of a completely original new game.

Ratings

Despite their criticisms, EA is the highest-rated independent publisher. Scores are concluded by aggregating ratings from many different sources, and dividing them out to see what the average EA game scores. EA comes up ahead, with average game scores up to 10% better than other major publishers. The only publisher ahead of EA in game scores is Nintendo, who is a first-party publisher (rather than third).

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